BUSINESS PEOPLE

BUSINESS PEOPLE; Top Gerber Officer Is Retiring Early

By Daniel F. Cuff

Published: May 28, 1987

William L. McKinley, chairman and chief executive of the Gerber Products Company, announced unexpectedly yesterday that he was taking early retirement.

Mr. McKinley, 63 years old, resigned immediately as chief executive to provide for an orderly transition, the company said. He will remain chairman until a regular board meeting scheduled for July.

Leo D. Goulet, 61, president and chief operating officer, was named to the additional post of chief executive at a special meeting of the Gerber board.

L. James Lovejoy, a spokesman for the Fremont, Mich., baby food maker, said Mr. McKinley's announcement came as a surprise, although the chairman has been with Gerber for 37 years. Mr. McKinley and Mr. Goulet were not available for interviews yesterday, the spokesman said.

Both men were heavily involved in battling a scare last year that Gerber baby food contained glass. Mr. Goulet made television commercials in English and Spanish - he grew up in Panama - to allay fears. Mr. McKinley's overall strategy - criticized in some quarters - was to remain firm, declining to make any recalls.

''The company has been through a difficult period since February 1986 because of the unfounded glass allegations, as well as difficulties in a number of other businesses,'' said Alan Greditor, an analyst at Drexel Burnham Lambert Inc.

But Mr. Greditor added that Gerber had since restored its market share in the baby food business.

The company derives 47 percent of its sales from baby food, and its market share has climbed to 67 percent, from 55 percent during the glass scare. It has diversifed into insurance, day care, children's apparel and furniture - products directed at families with children.

Mr. Greditor said the diversified businesses provided absymal returns on assets ''as compared with the exceptionally high returns of the core food operations.'' He said the company had either to improve the diversified operations or divest itself of them.

Mr. Goulet, whose father worked for the Canal Zone commissary, joined Gerber in 1955 as assistant export manager in the United States. In 1960 he was sent back to Panama and made president of Gerber Products International. Five years later, he became head of the Venezuelan subsidiary. He returned to the Fremont headquarters in 1968 to direct Gerber's Latin American operations. He has been president since 1983.

Mr. McKinley, the son of a Michigan creamery owner, put himself through law school at the University of Michigan on the G.I. bill. He joined Gerber in 1950 as corporate attorney and was named chairman and chief executive in 1985.